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User blog:Garr9988/Beyond the Laughing Sky
Chapter 1 - A Long Tale THE B&B Garrett and Pete bolted from their bedroom doors on the upper floor of the Bed and Breakfast. Pete was hoisting a pair of jeans up his legs while Garrett pulled a shirt down over his head. “It’s mine!” Pete yelled out. They rushed for the staircase and raced each other down the steps, each using the other as leverage to propel themselves further. Their combined footsteps sounded not unlike a bucket of large bouncy balls that had been dumped down the wooden stairs. “No, I’ve got it!” Garrett shouted. They turned the corner halfway down the staircase onto the lower section. When they neared the the bottom, they both tried to jump forward and skip the last step at the same time. As a result, they became stuck, inner shoulders pressed together and outer ones squeezed between the banister and the wall. Pete and Garrett strained against each other, the soft green walls, and the impeccably sturdy wooden posts. “I’m so gonna get it!” Pete assured both himself and his opponent through spittling sputters. “Nuh-uh!” Garrett retorted, trying to free his arms so he could shove Pete back. The two dislodged themselves from the bottom step with a comedic “pop”, both stumbling forward to their knees. They scrambled back up just as quickly and resumed their footrace. They were neck and neck when they entered the living room, but Pete jumped over one of the couches with surprising skill. By the time Garrett maneuvered around the obstructing piece of furniture, Pete was already through the glass dining room/solarium doors and on his way to the kitchen. “Aw man,” Garrett sighed as he came to a halt in the solarium’s doorway. Foiled again. He leaned over, hands on his knees, and caught his breath. Even after several years in the Warehouse, Pete would always be much more fit than he was - which was always a bit surprising with how many scones the Marine could vacuum down his throat. He stood back up with another sigh and glanced forward. Through the second pair of glass doors leading out into the Bed and Breakfast’s back patio was Abigail, kneeling in front the small red-tile-topped table. On top of the table were several potted plants taken from the solarium arranged, and behind it were its chairs lined up in a row. In her hands was a large and somewhat expensive-looking camera with a lens that extended a few inches from the body. Garrett watched as she kept turning the camera, snapping photos vertically, horizontally, even diagonally. “Hey Abi,” Garrett greeted with a short wave, walking through the sunlit room. “Whatcha doin’?” “Oh, good morning Garrett,” Abigail said cheerfully as she turned her head back from her camera’s viewfinder. “Just taking some photographs.” She smirked and gestured with her hefty camera. “Heard Pete beat you to the kitchen this morning, sorry.” Garrett sighed a third time and shoved his hands into his pockets with a shrug. “Yeah, well, you can’t win ‘em all.” He walked out onto the patio and leaned against the door frame. Looking at Abigail’s apparent focus, he noticed that the plants and flowers all had little paper faces stuck onto them, all with jovial or cooky expressions. He pointed to the strange floral arrangement, “What’s with the baby Ents?” Abigail looked back to the table and chuckled. “Ah, just trying a more fantastical subject today - a break from prisoners of war, you know?” She stood up and brushed her knees off, letting her camera rest on its strap at her stomach. “I was reading Through the Looking-Glass a few days ago and got a little inspired.” “''Looking-Glass?” Garrett asked with a raised brow. “You know that’s a Warehouse cover-up, right?” Abigail blinked and jerked her head back in surprise. “Really? But it’s a children’s classic, it was on my elementary school reading list!” It was Garrett’s turn to look surprised. “You didn’t know?” Abigail shook her head. “But, you’re the Keeper, you’ve got the history of all the Warehouses in your brain, right?” “The Keeper is a living record of the Warehouse’s most vital memories and secrets,” Abigail clarified with an amused smile. “And even then I only have access to those memories with Ka'ahumanu’s Lei Niho Palaoa. Besides that, I learn everything else about the Warehouse the same way you do." “Man, I wish I was the Keeper,” Garrett mused, looking off into the backyard. “Or the Warehouse historian, ''something. Knowing all its secrets, every detail about its past, everyone that worked for it and everything that’s happened to it over thousands and thousands of years… History is just my thing, you know? And the Warehouse has the richest history out of anything on the planet - ‘sides the planet, of course.” Abigail smiled and walked inside, where she took her camera from around her shoulders and placed it on the circular wooden table. “Well, unless you’re a long lost part-Scottish cousin of mine, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Bu-ut,” she raised a finger and her smile became much more intriguing look. “I know one of the next best ways for you to learn about the Warehouse’s past.” Garrett opened his mouth, ready to ask a load of questions, when Pete sauntered through the doorway to their left. In his hand was a hoagie wrapped in a paper bag and stuffed full of delicious meaty, cheesy, lettuce-y goodness. “Whazzap homies, I'' got me a hoagie,” he gloated as he waved his sandwich around like a trophy. Garrett hissed and he leaned back, clutching his precious breakfast to his chest with a legitimately fearful look. “Oh, before we go,” Abigail pointed to Garrett, “your shirt’s on backwards,” she pointed to Pete, “and your fly is down.” They looked down at their rushed dress job, and Pete demurely turned around and zipped up his jeans. '“Thanks.” ---- '''WAREHOUSE 13 - FILING ROOM' Abigail pulled open the simple metal door, reached inside, and flicked the nearby light switch. A row of hanging ceiling lamps flickered to life, illuminating the room. “This is the main filing room,” Abigail extended her hand and gestured to the room as a whole - it was a long, long room filled with rows upon rows of industrial shelves packed with labelled boxes long and short, wide and thin; accordion folders stuffed to bursting with papers; rolled up posters and scrolls, some bound with ribbon or rubber bands, others encased in long paper or cardboard tubes. There were even a few boxes Garrett recognized were used to hold records, reels, or floppy disks and laserdiscs. The walls were lined with filing cabinets of various kinds, some like those you’d find in a library or typical office, and some like the strange card-catalog cabinets in the back of Artie’s office. At the nearest and farthest ends of the room were rectangular wooden desks with a chair each, topped with a few folders, stationery, and writing equipment. The pair walked inside together. Abigail continued to talk while Garrett looked around the room in wonder. “Artie showed me this place a few years ago. Copies of more recent files, like the agents of the last 200 years, are kept in the office with a few other things, but everything else is right here.” Garrett couldn’t believe his eyes - the Warehouse’s history, almost all of it, all in one room. A very, very big room, but still! “Artie says the Warehouse keeps files on every person who’s ever created an artifact, everyone who’s ever used or encountered one,” Abigail continued, pointing to various shelves and cabinets as she spoke, “along with inventory documents, mission and incident reports, agent files, you name it. Why don’t you spend some time reading up on some of this stuff?” He turned back to Abigail, beaming. “Thank you so much Abigail, this is awesome!” He pumped his fists, then walked over to give her a hug. “I’ll always be jealous of that Hawaiian blood of yours, but I’m gonna be the one to know all’a dis,” he pointed to the same shelves and cabinets around them with a playfully cocky smile. Abigail giggled. “Oh, oh yeah, I envy you all’a dis.” A buzzing noise emanated from her back pocket - she reached back and pulled out her phone to check its screen. “Ah, I gotta get going,” she gave Garrett an apologetic smile and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m taking cooking lessons at the bakery over on 3rd - Charlotte Kaiser is running it from the kitchen. IIII don’t know if she has a license, but everyone who attends gets a free tiramisu at the end of the class!” She pats Garrett’s cheek and walks out of the room, “See ya later, Keeper Jr.!” Garrett beamed again and spun around to face the expanse of reading material before him. This was going to take a very, very, very long time to go through - and that wasn’t counting the countless new files that were added every time there was a ping. He wouldn’t have it any other way. He walked alongside the shelves, looking for a box that spoke to him - not that anything really stood out. The boxes, although in a few different colors and obviously of different ages, were all rather plain and identical to some or others, much like the boxes in the office’s mini filing room. Looking at the shelves, he saw that they were organized alphabetically, the ends of the shelves carrying labels from 0-9 and A-Z. Of course, with how many files there were, single letters took up anywhere from 3-5 or even more rows alone. After a bit of walking, he stopped in front of the first shelf labelled “D”. Contemplating the letter for a moment, he walked down the aisle and started grabbing random folders and boxes. ---- “Al-''right'',” Garrett said to nobody in particular, slamming down a tall stack of folders onto the table at the front of the room. He sat himself down in the chair that was thankfully cushioned (as long as he would be willing to stay here, he’d rather immerse himself in his home’s history in at least moderate comfort), rubbed his hands together, and began to sort through his selection. “Let’s see…” He picked up the files and placed them to the side when he wasn’t interested in reading them at the moment. “Dada, Devereaux, Dickens, Dodgson, Dybowski…” He paused, the last file hovering over the side stack, then placed it back in the main stack and picked up the previous one. He held the large brown accordion folder, one of several labelled “''Dodgson, Charles''” in his hands, and stared at the label. '“The Dodgson File…” He recalled being told by the other agents the truth behind the Alice stories and “Lewis Carroll’s” other works, and the two times Liddell herself escaped her reflective prison. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the whole thing. And he was with Myka when it came to feeling sorry for Alice, as objectively horrible and sociopathic as she was. He also recalled Abigail’s photography project earlier that morning, and that was enough to convince him to open up the first of the folders, pull out a clipped collection of handwritten papers, and begin reading. Category:Blog posts Category:Garr9988 Category:Fanfiction